Oculus and Crytek Explore New & Novel Methods of VR Locomotion

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Oculus has teamed up with Crytek to share a series of VR game design learnings. The second and latest post in the series explores eight prototype methods for moving or rotating in virtual reality.

Keeping players comfortable in VR is the very first step to creating a compelling experience, but so far there isn’t one method of locomotion that makes sense for all types of games. The best VR games we’ve seen to date are those which pair the right locomotion method with the right gameplay, so experimenting with the two together before diving into production is important.

Luckily Oculus and Crytek have invested time in experimenting with new VR locomotion schemes and is sharing their learnings with everyone. The latest post in Oculus’ “Developer Perspectives” series includes a video playlist showing eight prototype methods for moving and rotating in VR:

In the post, the authors stress that developers should aim to pick the right locomotion scheme, or combination of locomotion schemes, that fit their specific project goals:

For anyone checking out our video playlist for the first time, our advice would be to first think about how you want to combine different methodologies to find the most successful concept for your project, as most have pros and cons that need to be balanced depending on the project. In our playlist of experiments, we tried a wide range of different methods. Some failed. Some worked. Some may create physical fatigue. Some required combining with different techniques to show their potential.

They also describe three methods that they found particularly interesting:

Charge Float Jump

Charge Float Jump is a method that lets you charge your jump. The longer you hold the jump button, the higher you will rise in the VR space. You can also tweak the gravity settings so that instead of descending at a natural speed, you float and glide. Without a visual aid this can feel a bit different, but when you jump quickly and then transition to floating, it can feel smooth. Both a cockpit and a “Constraint Scheme” visual aid work really well in reducing sickness for this method of locomotion. This movement would work really well for a hang-gliding or wingsuit game. It feels really instinctive, and we think it has a lot of potential. Try it out!

HMD Acceleration

This movement is just straight-up a lot of fun. It’s a combination of different prototypes, and it’s a way of initiating movement by looking in the direction you want to go. You tilt your head forward, you move forward. Tilt your head backwards, and you go backwards. In combination with “HMD strafing,” you can also tilt your head to the side and together, it makes you feel like you’re a pinball on a table, rolling around, or you can move through the world like you’re a snake. While this functionality can be a bit nauseating, it’s super fun, especially when you apply a visual aid. An infinite runner using this locomotion would be really interesting—put obstacles in the world, collection points, maybe add in “Charge Float Jump” functionality, and you can move rapidly and intuitively through VR.

World Rotation

“World Rotation” uses the Oculus Touch controllers. You pull a trigger, then move the controller left or right to rotate the world. This can feel very natural. We experimented with this method in a few ways—one that showed a lot of promise was applying a body and weapons to an in-game avatar. This meant you could take a rifle into your hands, use the rotation to scan the scene, and then release the trigger once you acquired a target you wanted to shoot. It feels very natural and, in combination with “Head Tilt Acceleration” and Strafing, it has all the makings of a compelling VR first-person shooter experience. If you’re interested in designing a VR FPS, it’s worth playing around with this method.

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Trackers… Put two VIVE Trackers on feet and gently move feet for walk, than walk or run in place for run. Move forward or backward depending on position of headtrack in relation to feet. Our brain needs feet movement to belive you are walking.

G-man

yeah no it doesn’t your brain knows you are walking on the spot. that sounds awful

lazasta

This just seems plain stupid

Michael Wentworth-Bell

This is the “Control Theatre” locomotion system we put together for Espire 1 VR stealth gamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFSMdfVvsl8
We think with this method you can have full freedom of movement, while minimizing VR sickness and maintaining immersion.

They should use sensors to detect neural activity to control velocity. This is old tech, but could not really gain a foothold while the mouse, keyboard and various other controllers ruled for traditional gaming. It could maybe be ideal for VR.

The simplest solution : get used to VR locomotion, play a lot of crazy locomotion games a little bit more everyday until you are fully resistant. Problem solved forever. VR Virgins and the left behind will hate VR anyway, because they cannot afford it.

Jason Mercieca

YES thats what i did, your answer is 200%correct, try until u r brain adapts, for the very few that really try and cannot the world should not go dam and spoil the trackpad locomotion for others, trackpad system like ONWARD is the only solution, still major dev are still searching, OMG it must be true the saying, qualifications does not bring intelligence and even less common sense!
Those who cannot adjust playing in trackpad (best available movement imitation to real life) are people who either dont put the effort to get used too or they greatly suffer of motion sickness and would need a totally reality ruining motion movement system (like teleport, its a horrible system immersion breaker) just to play the game, offer them the option to teleport thats ok BUT offer the people trackpad movement also (like game onward), i totally hate and will never support a game that has no option to trackpad movement like game onward, less than that and it becomes useless to me, all dev has the duty to accommodate as many people as possible..

Peter Hansen

For me to work in VR without getting sick, linear movement has to be:
1. fast
2. instantaneous
3. non-accelerated (constant speed from the start)

So will never be for general public. Most people will try VR for the first and last time in their life.

G-man

the answer is to stop wanting to walk around for miles in vr.

Jason Mercieca

The best locomotion system has already been discovered, im sure many will agree, like GAME ONWARD, trackpad locomotion, its the most identical to real life, and imitation to real life is what most immersive and natural, all other types of locomotion are really breaking the ingame immersion the headset is meant to give.
So well they are the expects but i think some people just quits on trackpad locomotion after only a few tries, so instead of ruining the locomotion system to make those people happy why not make an effort in giving proper instructions of manner in which people can get used to play in trackpad locomotion, once there brain adjusts they be so glad they continued trying cause most people will get used to it, im a good example, at first i felt dizzy and worse but after 1 week of few tries per day im immune to it, i can evem play doom bfg in vr jumping, running and even aerial plane dog fighting games.
So PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL FUTURE GAMES WITH STUPID LOCOMOTION SYSTEMS LIKE TELEPORT AND OTHERS, FOR TRACKPAD IS THE BEST AND ONLY AVAILABLE OPTION IF IMMERSION IS THE PURPOSE.

NooYawker

It’s an interesting locomotion scheme. Any research into locomotion that removes the need to use your controller is good. In action games using the controller to move will always be a hindrance. Aiming, shooting, reloading gets to be too much in the heat of battle.

An omni-directional treadmill large enough to allow for sprinting, which tends to involve long strides. As well as some sort of harness to allow for jumping and hurdling over objects but keeps you over the platform. However, it must not be a physical ring that encircles you at the waist, thus ensuring your arms constantly hit it when you walk naturally or stand idle. It must also not have some large arm directly above you that you are sure to hit when reaching up aiming upwards suddenly.

Until this is designed and perfected, the best we’ll have is track-pad locomotion and room-scale.

Potato Sorcerer

Why is everyone pretending that the virtuix Omni doesn’t exist?

Jagick

Because the virtuix omni while nice does not offer all of those things. In fact it has at least one of the things I stated in my comment that it shouldn’t have.

G-man

because it essentially doesnt. they dont sell to consumers. the price is way more than they said it would be.